7 burning questions we have for 'You' Season 5
If I were to make an out-of-context You Season 4, there'd be a game of Cluedo, Fight Club, a bottle of urine, and Taylor Swift. This season was wild. And the finale's rolling credits felt like a deep breath of air after running a marathon.
After a series of plot twists and a lone Joe (Penn Badgley) haphazardly trying to clean up his mess, Season 4 wrapped up Joe's chapter in London with a move back to New York. He's as untouchable as ever, living with Kate (Charlotte Ritchie) in a sky-rise apartment. His entire criminal record has been wiped clean. And everyone in America is eating up his "survivor" story. But despite giving Joe a happy ending, the season has left a few questions unanswered.
Is this really the last we've seen of Rhys (Ed Speleers)? Does Kate actually think she can change Joe? And how is Joe's box moving across the world? Let's dive into this season's burning questions, and what Season 5 might answer for us.
Is Rhys going to come back?
We thought we saw the last of Rhys when Joe pushed him over a bridge, literally and figuratively, to finally bid his double persona goodbye. But in Season 4's last episode, we get a glimpse of Rhys' reflection staring back at Joe, so something's telling me this isn't the last of him.
While we can never technically see the end of Rhys because he is Joe, his "return" might mean another round of Joe completely losing it and imagining Rhys in our physical realm. From that little Rhys reflection tease, we can assume that Rhys is still inside Joe, festering underneath the surface and waiting for the cracks to open just enough for him to come out again. Joe thinks he has everything handled, but his denial and delusion are always strolling hand in hand, so we might be seeing some more Rhys activity next season.
Since Joe is back in New York, are we going to see the return of familiar faces?
It's time to take a trip down memory lane and go all the way back to Joe's first wild jamboree in NYC. While we all remember the shock of watching Joe do his thing for the first time, and Beck's (Elizabeth Lail) unfortunate demise, we may not remember all the other characters that tagged along on Joe's big day out in the Big Apple.
Some faces we might need to remember include Ethan (Zach Cherry), Joe's colleague at Mooney's bookstore (remember that?). Ethan was a lovable book clerk who genuinely considered Joe his friend. And while he was sitting on the sidelines during Joe's first bout of chaos, he may have a role to play in Season 5. We last saw Ethan moving in with his new girlfriend and running Mooney's on his own. Ethan remembers Joe as this shy, almost blasé colleague. Now that Joe's returning to New York as a millionaire thanks to Kate, Ethan might question Joe's evolution from Brooklyn book clerk to macho mogul.
Apart from Ethan, two of Beck's friends, Annika (Kathryn Gallagher) and Lynn (Nicole Kang), are still alive and well in New York. If word gets out that Joe's back, the two might put their detective hats on and question the man we know killed two of their friends. Season 1 of You feels like a foggy fever dream, so it might be time for a rewatch considering that we're back in New York and things could take a nostalgic twist.
Are the Quinns going to fight back?
In Part 1 of Season 4, we learned that Love's (Victoria Pedretti) parents were more or less hunting down Joe by hiring a private investigator called Elliot (Adam James). We know that Elliot spared Joe, for a hefty sum, but with Joe's name back in the news cycle, he's on the Quinns' radar again. Why does that matter?
Well, we're either going to see Elliot go after Joe for breaking their truce, or we're going to see the Quinns (Michael Reilly Burke and Saffron Burrows) go haywire and try to bring Joe down through their own means. We know the Quinns are wealthy and have a past of cleaning up their crimes, so they may dip their toes into their pool of resources and use them against Joe. We also might not see the return of the Quinns at all, but that would be a loose end You might have to answer later. One thing's for sure, the Quinns hate Joe and know he was involved in Love's murder, so we can expect their wrath to swing back at any time.
Is Joe going to have a new love interest?
If there's one thing we can expect from Joe, it's a new obsessive infatuation each season. The man can't be tied down, and whenever he thinks he's found the love of his life, another woman walks in and the cycle repeats itself. We saw it play out this season when he literally forgot about Marienne (Tati Gabrielle), who he followed to Europe, for a London fling with Kate. And while he may be all lovey-dovey with Kate now, this is Joe we're talking about.
New York is now his hunting ground, and the city that never sleeps should expect a wide-eyed Joe taking it all in. He'll probably walk into a coffee shop and hyper-fixate on why some girl ordered an oat milk latte instead of matcha, then follow her to find out she's a grad student at NYU and download her course schedule to "get to know her." The sad thing is I can totally see Joe doing all of the above.
Are we finally going to see the return of some characters that Joe spared?
Looking back at the past seasons of You, there are a lot of people Joe spared who know he doesn't have the cleanest record. Two characters I think should make a comeback are Paco (Luca Padovan) and Ellie (Jenna Ortega). Here's why.
We met Paco in Season 1. He was an extremely troubled child living right next door to Joe. His mom was a drug addict, and her partner, Ron (Daniel Cosgrove), was incredibly abusive, prompting Joe to take matters into his own hands. Paco witnesses Joe killing Ron, and Joe explains that some people deserve to be killed. Paco also finds Beck in Joe's box of doom but runs away. Clearly, Paco knows that Joe's a killer and probably murdered Beck, but he also views Joe as a savior, which complicates their relationship — and that's worth exploring.
Paco was at an impressionable age in Season 1, absorbing all the wrong kinds of lessons from Joe. With that amount of trauma, it's fair to ask who he's become as a teenager. Did Paco turn into someone like Joe? Or did he try to move on and heal? Paco and Joe's relationship is something the show's since brushed over, but it's abundant with potential what if's. Maybe You will finally be tying up these loose ends.
Ellie is another kid who had the unfortunate luck of being Joe's neighbor, and who also knows he's a killer. After a whole mess of events, Joe tells Ellie the truth about his past. She knows that he murdered some people in L.A., and she knows Joe kidnapped her sister, who was murdered by Love (remember that plot twist?). To smooth things over, Joe gives her a backpack of money to start a new life in Florida. We learn in Season 3 that Joe sends Ellie money whenever he hears from her, but with his whole European move, clearly that transaction's come to an end. So will Ellie finally get her revenge?
Ellie's a smart kid with a hot-headed personality. She knows how to take care of herself, and by You Season 5, she'd be a young adult, making her the perfect character to put an end to Joe. Ellie's wounds have probably been festering all this time, and Joe's name flashing across headlines may trigger her to make a trip to New York with tricks up her sleeve. Here's hoping that Wednesday's Season 2 filming allows Jenna Ortega to make a comeback in You. I sure know the suspense of it all is killing me.
What did Joe tell Lady Phoebe?
We asked this question in our You Season 4 Part 1 burning questions, hoping we'd get an answer in Part 2, but we still don't know what the hell Joe told Phoebe (Tilly Keeper) to get her to like him this much. I think it's fair to assume we're never going to get an answer, so it's time for wild fan theories to run amok. My guess is some randomized rendition of a "live, love, laugh"-type spiel that someone as sheltered as Phoebe has never heard. Or maybe he just called her pretty and that was enough for her to trust him with her life. It's fair game to assume that it was either incredibly out-of-pocket or something so painfully obvious that we'll all facepalm if our question is ever answered.
How is Joe moving his box around?
Joe's box of doom started out as a book vault keeping rare prints safe, and has since evolved into his sidekick. Joe's been bringing this giant, plexiglass box with him everywhere he goes, and it's time to rightfully ask: How the hell did he bring it all the way to London? Surely someone would have questioned why this man needs to ship this box with him, or asked for formal papers of some sort for validation. At this point, I'm entirely convinced that Joe's box is actually his personal TARDIS, and we've been watching a remixed version of Dr. Who this entire time.
With Joe back and bigger than ever in New York, it's time to buckle up for another wild ride in Season 5. He's a millionaire mogul depending on Kate's cover-up to keep him safe. But if there's one thing we can count on from You, it's Joe always spiraling into a hot pile of mess. His new polished look is actually more like low-effort macaroni art, its pieces slowly chipping away, just waiting to untangle altogether.